


these waves of grief and longing

by nettlestingsoup



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Selkie!Felix, Urban Fantasy, fisherman!changbin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nettlestingsoup/pseuds/nettlestingsoup
Summary: In his time living down by the water, Changbin has seen the sea wash up a great many things; driftwood, an old boat, hoards of by-the-wind-sailors turning the sand blue. But the last thing he expects to see lying on the shore is a person. A young man who will barely speak, with eyes like salt and sea-ice.He has secrets, Changbin can tell. Things he doesn't want to speak of. Changbin thinks he can cope with that. But as they become clearer, Changbin begins to realise that maybe they're not what he expected; that maybe, there's more to Felix than he first thought.And Changbin isn't the only one who knows what Felix is- or the only one who wants him.
Relationships: Lee Felix/Seo Changbin
Comments: 116
Kudos: 213





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It's the beginning of a new month, so I'm back with a new fic! This one was extracted from a much bigger au that I abandoned just because I loved this ChangLix dynamic too much to let it go.
> 
> One small note: the perpetrator of the past attempted rape/non-con is NOT any of the members. We have an OC villain at play, because the story needed one.
> 
> As per usual, this will update every two days! I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Much love,  
> Nettle <3

The sea, Changbin has found over the years, is not something that can be predicted.

He sails it daily, feels the swell and pull of the tides against his little boat, the decks soaked and stained in blood and fish-skin. Every tide yields something different. And yet, every tide is the same.

Changbin finds comfort in that. The fact that, in the depths of it, in the pure and simple truth of the moon and the water, nothing ever changes.

But the sea seems to know when he’s getting complacent.

* * *

He finds the boy early in the morning. The dawn has just broken, sky fading from one shade of grey to another, and there is a body on the beach. Changbin approaches it slowly, pebbles skittering down from beneath his feet and forming percussion against the mournful notes of the gulls. None of them have settled on the body; there is no flesh picked away, no innards pink and fly-settled hanging from within the curves of bare skin- it’s a boy, Changbin realises as he gets closer, and he’s naked.

Changbin hopes, despite his stillness, face down in the stones and sand, that he’s alive.

Carefully, Changbin touches his shoulder. He’s cold, and Changbin feels dread rise within his stomach. He rolls the boy over. Waits until he sees movement, the faintest rise and fall of his chest.  Relieved, he pulls out his phone, intending to call an ambulance. But the boy gasps as he starts to key in the number, wide eyes opening, pupils constricting against the growing brightness of the sky.

"Hey," Changbin says gently. "Are you ok? Can you look at me?" The boy turns, and Changbin gets a better look at his features. Pretty eyes, sparkling somehow despite the lack of sunlight. Silver freckles dusting his skin.  "Can you tell me your name?" he asks as he pulls off his coat, placing it around the boy’s shoulders. He’s all too aware of the ice of his skin, how cold the sand must be against it. He needs to get him somewhere warm.

"Felix," the boy says distantly, voice deep and warm and unexpectedly sweet. He shivers, and pulls Changbin’s coat tighter around him.

"Ok, Felix. I’m Changbin. Can you walk?"

No reply.

"Let’s try. We just need to get up the beach, ok? My house is just there. You can warm up and I can call an ambulance."

Felix’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head, over and over until Changbin understands.

"Ok," Changbin says slowly. "I won’t call anyone. But come and get warm. Please."

After a moment, Felix nods. Changbin wraps an arm around his waist, letting Felix put his weight on his shoulder as he stands; but his knees buckle, bare feet slipping on the rocks, and Changbin has to catch him before he collapses.

"Can I carry you?" Changbin asks. Felix nods, and Changbin hooks his other arm around the back of Felix’s knees, cradling the stranger close to his chest as he makes his way back up the beach.   
Behind him, the gulls circle, and the tide follows the moon.

* * *

Felix doesn’t look right on Changbin’s sofa.

Changbin’s given him some of his own clothes to wear, and the way they fit isn’t quite helping the idea that there’s something strange about Felix; they’re a little too short in the leg, too wide in the shoulder. He refuses to give up Changbin’s coat either, wrapping it around himself over his clothes. Combined with the pallor of his skin, heightened by the electric lights, there’s something… otherworldly about him. Something cold and deep and dark as sea ice.

"Are you sure you don’t want an ambulance?" Changbin asks.

Felix shakes his head.

"Ok," Changbin agrees. "Can you tell me where you live so I can take you home?"

"It’s not somewhere you can go," Felix says softly.

Changbin stares at him, utterly lost. "Is it- is it blocked off by the tide? I have a boat, I can just-"

"It’s not the tide," Felix says. "You just can’t go there."

"I- Felix, I’m trying to help you, but I can’t if you won’t tell me anything." No reply. Changbin sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead as he tries to think. Felix won’t let him call an ambulance. He won’t tell him where he lives, or really anything except his name. He simply washed up on the beach, naked and cold and alone, and Changbin doesn’t know what to do.

"Did someone hurt you?" he asks desperately. "Are you- are you hiding? Is that why you won’t tell me anything?"

Felix pauses. It’s not just silence, Changbin decides, but a clear hesitation. He’s hit a nerve, and the thought elates him until his blood chills, wondering exactly what happened to leave Felix naked on the beach at dawn.

"Felix," he asks more gently. "What happened?"

For a moment, Felix meets his eyes. There’s a depth of grief in them Changbin doesn’t think he can quite fathom, and for a moment he drowns in it.

Felix looks away. He doesn’t say a word.

Changbin sighs. "Ok," he says. "You can stay here, I guess. I can’t see any reason why you can’t. It’s not like I have anything worth stealing. But not forever, ok?"

Felix looks as though he might cry. Changbin turns away before he is called upon to offer any comfort. He’s not sure he’d know how to give it.

* * *

He makes the two of them a simple stew that evening; Felix picks at it, barely eating, and Changbin finds himself at a loss. What can he do with this strange, silent boy? How can he help him if he won’t even eat?

"You can sleep in the spare room," Changbin tells him once it’s clear that Felix isn’t going to eat any more. "I guess you can just keep borrowing my clothes."

As before, no reply. Is it trauma? Something that scared him into near complete silence, words dying on his tongue?

"Come on," Changbin says once the silence has stretched too long. "It’s up here." He leads Felix into the cramped attic space, the low bed under the beams neatly made up as always. It’s not like he tends to have guests, really, but if his mother taught him anything, it’s that he should always be ready to be kind. Perhaps he’ll call her, he thinks, once Felix is asleep. Get some much-needed advice.   
Felix turns slowly in a circle, looking a little lost.

"Is it ok?" Changbin asks. He doesn’t really expect anything back, so he’s more than a little surprised when Felix gives him a tentative smile. "I’ll take that as a yes. Get some sleep, if you can. I’ll be downstairs if you need me."

Felix says nothing, not that Changbin expects him to. "Ok," he says. "I’m going."

He heads downstairs, sighing heavily as he does so. This was hardly how he expected his day to go. But Felix is here now, he supposes, and he at least has a plan for what to do next.

He calls his mother.

"Mum," he says quietly when she picks up the phone, "I need some advice."

"Hello to you, too," she responds, and he can’t help but laugh a little.

"Hi," he says apologetically. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, leave me out of it. You called me for advice."

"Yeah," Changbin confirms with a sigh, curling closer into the crook of the sofa. "Something happened today."

"Oh?"

"I found a guy on the beach. Just lying there. He wouldn’t let me call an ambulance, so I took him back here. He’ll barely say anything. He’s… he’s  _ engaging  _ with me, I can tell he’s listening when I speak, but…" he sighs. "There’s something wrong, I think, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know how to help."

"You don’t think he’s taken something?"

"No," Changbin replies, but if he’s honest, he didn’t even think of that. He hadn’t seen any obvious marks on Felix’s arms, but he could have smoked something, Changbin supposes. For some reason, he still discounts the idea. "It’s more like he’s scared."

"Do you know what he might be scared of?" His mother asks softly. "Is he running from something?"

"I don’t know," Changbin admits. "He just… he won’t tell me anything."

"What exactly did you want my advice on?" his mother prompts gently.

"I don’t know how to help," Changbin repeats. "If he won’t talk to me, I…"

"But you do want to help?"

"Yes. I do. He seems… he seems sort of fragile. And lost. And I want to help him."

"Then let him stay," his mother says. "If he doesn’t seem dangerous, then let him stay. Be patient with him. It may take him time, but if you’re open and kind then I’m sure he’ll let you help."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Ok. Thanks, mum."

"Keep me updated, ok? I want to know if he’s alright."

"Yeah, I will. I might need more advice if he just… doesn’t talk to me."

"See how he goes. And Changbin?"

"Yeah?"

"I’m proud of you for helping. This poor boy sounds lost. I think maybe he needs a friend."

"Yeah,” Changbin agrees heavily. He thinks of Felix curled up in the little attic bed, small and silent and afraid. “I think he does, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thank you to everyone who came back for another chapter. One important thing to say before you read: this chapter does NOT contain a legitimate suicide attempt, so I didn't tag it; but I just wanted to let people know that for a minute there it'll look like one, just in case that's going to trigger anyone. If you think it'll be a problem for you, let me know and I'll explain what happens so you don't have to read the description of it.
> 
> Next update Thursday <3

The next day, Felix takes a long time to come downstairs. Changbin sits in the kitchen, jittering, waiting for him to appear. Is he still asleep, he wonders? Is he unwell? The thought strikes him, sudden and terrible as a breaking wave, that Felix might have died in the night; he had been so cold, and acting so strange; perhaps he’d been concussed, striking his head against a rock during his time in the water, and the unseen damage had spread through his skull, drowning his brain in blood and leaving him cold and still in Changbin’s attic.

The thought makes Changbin feel more than a little nauseous, and he rises from his chair to ascend the stairs to the spare room. But just as he does so, he hears the floorboards above him creak, and his heart rate slows as the footsteps move towards the stairs.

Felix appears in the kitchen as a wild animal might; he moves slowly and softly, eyes fixed on Changbin, jolting at any slight sound.

"Hi," Changbin says. "Do you want some breakfast?"

He doesn’t expect an answer, but Felix nods. "Ok," he says, and Changbin forgets for a moment the question he just answered.

"Uh- ok! I don’t have much, but I can toast you some fruit bread?" He holds up the packet, and Felix just stares. His eyes are even more unsettling in the morning light, he finds, wide and dark and bottomless somehow. Changbin isn’t sure how long Felix spends just staring at the loaf of bread. He isn’t keeping track. Not with those strange, tenebrous eyes fixed on his hand.

Eventually, Felix seems to make a decision. "Toast," he says quietly, and Changbin takes it as a yes.   
"Ok," he agrees. "Toast." He puts enough in the toaster for himself as well as Felix, even though he’s already eaten. Somehow, he doesn’t think Felix would enjoy it if Changbin just watched him eat.

While the fruit bread toasts, the smell of cinnamon filling the kitchen, Changbin watches from his periphery as Felix sits slowly at the table. He sits in Changbin’s chair, slightly more worn, the wood slightly paler from sitting in the patch of sunlight that floods in from the living room window. Felix turns his face to the window, the morning light making his freckles shine, and Changbin decides that he doesn’t particularly mind. It’s just a chair.

Felix eats slowly; not as slowly as he had the night before, though, and Changbin is just glad to see him eating something. He doesn’t look particularly thin, but he doesn’t exactly look  _ well _ either. Perhaps that’s more to do with the look in his eyes, hollow and tired and lost.

"Did you sleep well?" he asks, and Felix stops eating for a moment, staring up at him. "I know the bed in the attic isn’t the most comfortable, but it’s better than the beach," he half-jokes. He’s not sure Felix responds well to jokes at this point, but he’s willing to try anything.

"I was warm," Felix says eventually, voice deep and quiet, and Changbin finds it reminds him of dark water, sunlight barely filtering through the depths.

"I’ll, uh," he begins vaguely. "I’ll turn the heating down for you."

In lieu of a response, Felix just keeps on eating his toast.

"Is there… is there anything you want?" Changbin asks him. "I was going to go to the supermarket today, is there any particular food you want, or anything you’re allergic to…?"

Felix just shakes his head, and quietly reaches out to take a slice of toast from Changbin’s plate.

"More fruit bread, then. Right. Are you going to be ok on your own?" Changbin doesn’t want to leave him by himself, but nor does he want to take him to the supermarket. He has the strangest feeling that Felix just wouldn’t react well to the sheer scale of it. But he barely has enough for dinner for one person, let alone two, so he has to go.

Felix nods. "I’ll be ok."

"Ok. I’ll write my number down and leave it by the phone, so you can call me if you need anything, or if you think of anything you want me to buy." Felix watches him scrawl out his number, taking the paper from him and staring at it. "Yeah. That. Call it if you need me." He takes the paper back, placing it next to the phone, and gives Felix a slight smile.

Just barely, Felix smiles back.

"Ok," Changbin tells him. "I’ll see you later."

"See you later," Felix echoes quietly, and Changbin leaves him in the kitchen and heads out to his car .

* * *

The house is empty when Changbin returns home from the shops. He calls out for Felix as he places his bags down on the table, and receives no reply. He checks upstairs, in the bathroom, even in his own bedroom in case Felix had wandered there for some reason. Nothing.

It’s only when he returns to the kitchen and happens to glance out the window that he sees him. A figure, wrapped in a coat, up to his ankles in the sea. Changbin freezes for barely a moment before he sprints outside, clattering down the shingles and onto the sand, calling Felix’s name.

He doesn’t think he’s running fast enough.

By the time he’s reached the edge of the water, it’s swirling around Felix’s thighs.

"Felix!" he calls, hearing his own voice shake. "Felix. Turn around. Please."

Felix stops. Turns.

For a moment, Changbin can’t move beneath the weight of the grief in his eyes. It’s as deep and dark as the far-out ocean, and Changbin can’t see even the faintest spark of hope in it.

But Felix takes another step, deeper into the water, and the spell breaks.

"Felix," Changbin says again. "No. Stop there, Felix, please, just stay still so I can get you, ok? I’m coming to get you."

Changbin can hear his own heartbeat as he pushes through the water. It’s like thunder in his ears, and he doesn’t think it’s the ice of the water that’s making his hands shake as he reaches out and pulls Felix against him, half-dragging him to shallower waters. Thankfully, Felix doesn’t resist.

"Felix. Oh god. Felix," Changbin says once he thinks they’re safe, holding Felix there for a moment, letting himself feel the weight of him against his chest. He receives no response. "Ok," he says, half to himself. "We’re going to go back inside, and we’re going to stay calm and make a cup of tea."

Felix doesn’t answer, but nor does he protest as Changbin leads him back to the house and sits him down at the kitchen table. Just as he said he would, Changbin makes tea. It’s more mechanical than anything, hands settling into the motions instead of grabbing Felix by the shoulders and shaking him, asking him what the  _ hell  _ he was thinking. He’ll get to that, he supposes, once he’s calmed down a little.

The kettle whistles as it boils, and they both jump at the sound.

"So," Changbin asks as he places a mug in front of Felix. "Anything you want to say about what just happened?"

Felix stares into his tea.

"Ok," Changbin says. "Do I get to know why you wanted to kill yourself? Is that how you ended up on the beach in the first place?" He sighs, trying not to let his voice rise. "I want to make sure that you’re ok, but you have told me  _ nothing _ , Felix, and I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me."

"I didn’t-" Felix begins, deep voice soft as gull-down. "I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to die."

"You- you wanted to go home?"

"Yes."

"So you walked into the ocean."

Felix hesitates, shoulders hunched. "I would have gone home if I had my coat," he whispers.

Changbin doesn’t know how to reply. The phrase doesn’t make enough  _ sense _ for him to reply. "Your coat?" is what he eventually chooses to say.

Felix nods, pulling Changbin’s coat tighter around his shoulders. "He took it. He wouldn’t give it back. He said he’d keep it until I stayed."

This, Changbin thinks he understands better. "An ex boyfriend?" he asks. "If you’d told me that sooner, I’d have gone and broken into his house and taken your stuff back, Felix."

"We weren’t lovers," Felix replies. He seems repulsed by the idea. "I wouldn’t- he tried to  _ force  _ me, to keep me, I wouldn’t-"

"Ok, ok," Changbin says soothingly, raising his hands in surrender. He tries not to let Felix’s words shake him.  _ He tried to force me _ . That seems… like something he can’t quite deal with. Not now, at least. "Not a boyfriend. But someone took something that belonged to you, and tried to make you stay with them, and you can’t go home until you’ve got your stuff back?"

Felix nods hesitantly. "Yes."

Changbin sighs. "Honestly, I still don’t understand how that equates to you walking into the sea. I really don’t. But if you need me to go and get your things, I will. Just tell me where the guy lives."

"I don’t know where he lives," Felix whispers. "And he’d hurt you. He’s not- he’s not  _ right _ , Changbin. He’d hurt you."

"Can I call the police, then? So you can talk to them about it? They might be able to help you find him."

"They won’t understand."

" _ I  _ don’t understand, Felix," Changbin says, trying not to let his exasperation show. "I’m trying, but I just- there’s so much I think you’re not telling me."

Felix’s gaze drops to the table. "You won’t believe me if I do."

"Try," Changbin begs him. "I know you’ve only known me for a day, but you can trust me, Felix. Please, try to explain."

Felix shakes his head, lapsing into silence again. Changbin sits back in his chair, and tries not to cry. This is too much for him to deal with. "Can you promise me you’re not going to do something like that again?" he asks eventually. "I’m calling an ambulance if you do, ok?"

"I promise," Felix says softly. "I mean it."

"Ok," Changbin replies. He can hear his voice shaking with relief. "Ok. I guess… I guess I need to put the shopping away."

"Can I help?" Felix asks.

"Sure," Changbin agrees. "Why not?" It’s not like the moments the two of them have shared can get any stranger, he thinks. Maybe something normal will be good for them.

He watches Felix slot things into cupboards as directed, smiling slightly when Changbin thanks him.

_ He tried to force me _ .

Changbin  _ really _ can’t deal with that right now.

It’ll wait, he decides, for another day. A brighter day, when the ocean doesn’t weigh so heavy on them both.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice soft chapter today! Thank you so much to everyone who's left comments and kudos.
> 
> Next update Saturday (I think? I don't know what day of the week it is anymore) <3

Changbin doesn’t really want to leave Felix’s side for the next few days. He’s a little too unnerved by what happened before; the sight of Felix walking slowly out to sea, eyes wide and dark and sad.

So, he stays home. Does some much-needed cleaning, and teaches Felix how to play board games, and reads aloud to him when he examines the books on the shelf as though he doesn’t quite understand why they’re there.

His eyes go so very wide when Changbin begins to read, and Changbin notices again just how lovely Felix is. There’s something unusual in his features, the soft-sharp of them, that Changbin struggles to tear his eyes away from. He reminds Changbin a little of the pebbles that cover the sand, dark and cold and washed smooth by the water.

Felix is ethereal, is what Changbin decides on, in a way he’s never quite seen before.

He does his best not to get flustered over it. Felix is many things, but Changbin doesn’t think he’s exactly a potential boyfriend.

His eating habits confirm this; he seems to prefer fish raw, stealing the skin from the chopping board once Changbin has pulled it free and eating it as though there’s nothing abnormal about it.   


"That’ll make you sick," Changbin chastises, and Felix just looks at him for a moment.

"No, it won’t," he replies. "I eat it all the time." He’s become more vocal, gradually, and Changbin is thankful for it; it makes him seem a little more human, somehow.

"What, is it some weird diet?" Changbin mutters, looking Felix up and down a little critically. Even bundled beneath a pair of Changbin’s jeans and one of his thick cable-knit sweaters, he knows that Felix is as slight as a feather. "You definitely don’t need to lose weight."

Felix shakes his head, licking his fingers. "It just tastes good," he tells Changbin.

Well. As long as he’s eating.

He tends to pick vegetables out of his food too, to the point that Changbin almost digs out a pack of multivitamins just to make sure he’s getting something healthy in his diet. But Felix is adamant that he’s always eaten that way, and although Changbin does his best not to think about the state Felix was in the day he had found him on the beach, he seems to remember Felix having a muscle definition most people would be fairly proud of.

So, if he wants to eat exclusively raw fish and fruit toast, Changbin isn’t going to stop him. He’s not a nurse, after all.

Still. He doesn’t particularly want to leave Felix alone for too long.

So, one afternoon, four days after Felix walked into the sea wrapped in his coat, Changbin encourages Felix to come with him to the market a few towns over.

"We don’t have to stay long," he promises. "I just need a few things for the boat, and I think one of the regular vendors might have it."

Felix seems a little reluctant, especially when he finds out that they’ll have to drive away from the beach, but he eventually agrees. Changbin does his best to find him some clothes that fit a little better, lending him a beanie to protect against the cold wind and a pair of boots. Felix is apparently unsure of what to do with the laces, and Changbin ends up kneeling in front of him to lace them up.  He watches with an air of fascination, making looping, crossing motions in the air with his hands as though to imitate the laces crossing over each other, and Changbin can’t help but laugh a little. Felix laughs too, a smile shining in his eyes, and Changbin thinks for a moment that he’s never seen anything quite so bright.

* * *

The market is, thankfully, quiet. Changbin doesn’t think that Felix would cope well if it had been a busy day, the hustle and bustle of bodies pushing him this way and that. He had seemed to find the car bad enough in terms of noise, eyes widening in shock when Changbin started the engine.

"It’s ok," Changbin had promised him when Felix had reached across to cling to his arm. "It’s meant to sound like that."

Felix still hadn’t stopped clinging, and Changbin had struggled somewhat to change gears with Felix’s hands like a vice around his arm. He hadn’t particularly minded. If he was honest, he’d sort of expected Felix to open the door and climb out the car while he was driving, so something as comparatively non-invasive as holding Changbin’s arm is a pleasant surprise.

Once Felix has gotten over the apparent trauma of the car ride, he settles into the rhythm of the market quite well; he still clings to Changbin, seeming to not want to lose him, and Changbin nods politely to anyone who gives them strange looks. He doubts he’s the only queer person in the surrounding towns, but he’s certainly become oddly famous for being one of the few who’s open about it, expressing attraction to both men and women when asked.

_ He’s not my boyfriend _ , he sort of wants to say to anyone staring, but he also feels a fierce desire to pretend that Felix  _ is _ , just so that it doesn’t seem like he’s denying anything.

Instead, he gently detaches Felix’s fingers from his arm, and holds his hand instead.

Felix doesn’t let go the entire time. He seems totally unaware of the looks they’re attracting, and whilst Changbin doesn’t particularly care, he at least  _ notices _ that they’re considered odd. Felix, apparently, doesn’t have any kind of filter in his head for that; realistically, he doesn’t seem to have a filter for a lot of things.

They get through Changbin’s list fairly quickly, finding all the things he needs, but Felix stops dead when he tries to return to the car.

"What?" Changbin asks, turning around to see Felix staring back towards the stalls. "What is it?"

He follows Felix’s gaze to a display of coloured scarves; they’re looped and draped all over the stall, disguising the structure of it completely in rainbows of mandala patterns, and Felix’s eyes are wide with adoration.

"Do you want to take a look?" Changbin asks, and Felix nods, turning to him with joy sparkling in his eyes at the prospect. Changbin wants to sigh, but can’t really find it in him to do anything that might put a damper on Felix’s happiness. This might be the brightest he’s ever seen him, after all. “Come on,” he says, and begins to tug him gently towards the display.

"Hi there!" the young woman running the stall says as they approach. Changbin doesn’t think he’s seen her around before; her accent places her as a local, but she seems… brighter than anyone else who lives around here. Perhaps it’s the ring in her nose, or the elaborate tattoos that lace her arms. Perhaps it’s the fact that when her gaze flickers to their joined hands, she smiles.

"Are you new around here?" Changbin asks, and she shrugs.

"Born and raised, but I left to travel for a while. It’s nice to be home." She turns, smiling gently at Felix. "You can touch them, if you want," she says softly, and Felix’s eyes light up as he reaches to run his fingers over a square of shining silver fabric, faint swirling patterns visible in the grey sunlight. He seems rather enamoured with it, and Changbin nudges him slightly with an elbow.

"Do you want it?" he asks, and Felix stares at him as though he’s surprised that Changbin asked. To be fair to him, so is Changbin. He isn’t sure when they crossed the line between letting Felix stay in house and buying him gifts.

But Felix nods shyly, and Changbin checks the price tag and hands over a few notes to the young woman.

"Thanks!" she says as she digs around in her register for change. "You know, I think silver really is your colour."

"Thank you," Felix says, reaching for Changbin’s hand again as he smiles a little shyly.

"Wait a mo," Changbin tells him as he takes the scarf, neatly wrapped in paper, along with his change, trying to juggle everything at once and still let Felix hold onto him. Eventually, he manages it, and the young woman waves brightly as they walk away, change jumping and chiming in Changbin’s pocket. Felix waves back with his free hand, smiling, and Changbin feels oddly proud of him for the gesture. He supposes he hasn’t seen Felix really interact with anyone before.

He seems a good deal calmer on the drive back, holding the wrapped scarf in his lap and occasionally rustling the paper as though he wants to unwrap it. Despite being a little confused by his own motivations, Changbin is glad he bought it for him; this truly is the happiest he’s seen Felix in the short time he’s known him.

* * *

Felix unwraps the scarf as soon as they’re home, pulling the shining fabric free and running his fingers over it.

"I think it’s supposed to be a shawl," Changbin tells him, and Felix glances up.

"A shawl?" he asks, and Changbin crosses the room, gently taking the scarf from him and tucking it around his shoulders. The motion draws the two of them a little closer together, and Changbin can see what the woman had meant.  _ Silver really is your colour _ , she’d said, and Changbin agrees; there are flecks of it in Felix’s eyes, a dusting of it over his skin; even his hair is touched with it, the odd strand of shining white amongst the darkness of it.

He’s struck, suddenly, by the realisation that people thought they were a  _ couple _ . It seems absurd, looking at Felix like this, that anyone would look at the two of them and think that someone like Felix would settle for someone like Changbin. He’s just too unbelievably, impossibly lovely.

"There," he says, releasing the edges of the shawl. "Like that." It looks a little odd, such fine fabric draped over his own too-big sweater, but Felix seems happy, running his fingers over the edges of it where it falls across his chest.

"Thank you," he says. "You didn’t have to do this."

Changbin shrugs awkwardly. "You looked… you looked like it mattered to you," he settles on saying, and Felix nods.

"It’s like something I had back home," he says softly, and his smile seems a little sad. Changbin isn’t sure what to do about it.

"Come on," he says, turning towards the stove. "I’ll make you some cocoa, and we can play another board game, yeah?"

"Yeah," Felix agrees quietly, and Changbin is surprised to feel Felix’s arms wrap around his waist from behind, cheek rested on his shoulder in a brief, careful embrace. Unable to really hug him back, Changbin just pats his hands awkwardly where they cross over his stomach, and hopes that it’s enough.

Felix disappears after that, perhaps to change into something that isn’t so overly warm, and Changbin exhales slowly once he knows that he’s alone. He still doesn’t understand Felix. Still doesn’t know anything about him, or where he came from.

But somehow, he finds himself becoming increasingly, inexplicably fond of him.

And he thinks that maybe Felix feels the same.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things are revealed! Thank you to anyone who's read to the halfway point, you're rewarded by a tiny appearance from Chan.
> 
> Next update Monday <3

In the dark hours of the next morning, Changbin is awoken by the front door slamming shut.  _ Felix _ , he thinks immediately. He’s out of bed before he’s really thought about it, fumbling in the dark for his boots. It’s been a good few days since Felix had wandered into the ocean, brine clinging his clothes to his skin, eyes heavy with a weight Changbin knows he can’t lift alone, and Felix had seemed fine since then. Happy, even. But it comes in waves, something like grief, Changbin thinks. Overwhelming until it passes, leaving you shaken and hollow and tired.

By the time Changbin gets outside, Felix is halfway down the beach. But he’s not alone; there are other figures in the moonlight, shadows in the water. He can see them surprisingly clearly, and he realises that the night is almost as bright as day, no light pollution concealing the shine of the stars and their reflections in the water.

As Changbin watches, Felix kneels on the sand, a sallow shade of grey beyond the black of the stones, and the seals rise from the waves to meet him. They make their ungainly way through the shallows towards him, pressing wet-nose kisses to his hands and neck. Felix lowers his head, letting them kiss his cheeks, running his hands softly over their backs. It’s oddly tender; the way one might stroke the hair of a child.

A sound carries on the wind, and Changbin strains to hear it. Felix is singing to them, he realises. He’s singing to the seals, and they’re raising their sleek heads to the moon as if waiting for a reply.

Changbin watches for a while longer. Watches Felix say goodbye, the seals in the shallows turning as they reach deeper waters as though they expect him to follow.

He ducks back into the doorway as Felix turns to head back to the house. Runs up to his room and watches from the window as Felix picks over the stones that divide the cottage from the sand.

Changbin doesn’t relax until he hears the front door shut again. The creak of footsteps outside his door.

In the morning, Felix says nothing of the meeting, and Changbin finds himself wondering if he dreamed it.

* * *

When he next takes his boat out, leaving Felix alone in the house, he finds himself surrounded by seals.

They follow him, circling in the water and staring at him with wide, dark eyes that gleam in the cold morning light.

"Shoo," Changbin calls to them, waving his hands. "I can’t cast any nets with you here. I don’t want to hurt you."

They don’t leave.

After an hour or so, he gives up.

"You’re back early," another regular fisherman comments. His name is Jim, and he and Changbin have been on fairly friendly terms since he first moved here. 

Changbin gestures out to the seals, still hovering in the water around his boat. "Can’t do anything with them clinging to me like that," he points out.

Jim eyes the seals critically. "Only seen them do that once," he comments. "Around Adamson’s boat. A good few years ago, mind. Just after he got married."

"Never knew Adamson was married."

"She was a quiet woman. Threw herself off the cliffs after around four years."

"Geez."

Jim fixes him with a stare Changbin doesn’t quite understand. "Some say she was a selk," he says pointedly. "That Adamson stole her sealskin coat to make her marry him, and she couldn’t bear to be away from the water."

"Selkies aren’t real, Jim," Changbin counters.

Out of nowhere, the seals bark. It sounds like disapproval.

Jim laughs. "Someone disagrees with you," he says. "If you’re keeping any selk-skin coats in your house, I’d return them quick."

_ Coats _ .

That rings a bell.  He stops cleaning his boat, waiting for the threads of the thought to coalesce.

Felix’s strange affinity with the seals. Accusing someone of taking his coat. Walking into the ocean with Changbin’s raincoat around his shoulders, claiming he just wanted to go home.

"That’s a long silence, Seo," Jim says. There’s a warning in his tone. "I’ve always thought you were a good lad. But if you’ve gone and done something foolish…"

"I haven’t," Changbin tells him vaguely. "I swear, I haven’t."

"I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now," Jim tells him, taking a puff of his pipe. "But if they-" he gestures to the seals "-keep this up? I won’t let up until I know. Alright?"

Changbin nods. "Alright," he agrees.

Jim wanders away as he finishes clearing his boat, leaving him alone with the seals. They watch him, dark eyes unrelenting, and Changbin can feel their gaze prickling at his spine.

It follows him all the way home.

* * *

Felix is in the bath when Changbin returns. He seems to enjoy bathing, submerging himself for hours at a time, water going cold around him. The first time he’d stayed in there so long, Changbin had panicked, thinking he’d drowned himself.

He thinks he understands now.

Now that the seals won’t leave him alone. Now that he thinks harder about Felix walking into the sea, saying he can’t go home without his coat.

Felix doesn’t emerge from the bathroom for another hour and a half, eventually coming downstairs in a t-shirt and loose woollen trousers, silver shawl draped over his shoulders as it has been since the day they bought it.  _ It looks like something I had back home _ , he’d told Changbin, and it begins to make sense.

"Is everything ok?" Felix asks, catching sight of his expression, and Changbin pats the sofa beside him. Slowly, he sits down.

Changbin tries to gather his thoughts as best he can. He has no idea at all how to phrase this.

"You’re not… you’re not human, are you?" he asks eventually, and Felix’s eyes widen. "I… the seals have been following me. I didn’t think much of it until Jim pointed it out, but- he told me a story about the wife of a man who lives up on the hill, that she was-" he pauses, unsure of whether to voice something that seems so absurd. "That she was a selkie," he finishes weakly.

For a moment, there’s silence. "Would you believe me if I said I was one too?" Felix asks eventually. "I don’t have my coat. I can’t prove it to you."

"Yes," Changbin says. "I’d believe you." He genuinely does, he realises. It just makes too much sense for him to ignore. "How did you end up on the beach?"

Felix curls in on himself a little, and Changbin resists the urge to put an arm around him, pull him close. "A fisherman caught me in a net," he says softly. "Once he realised what I was, he wouldn’t let me go. He… he took my coat. He tried to make me stay, but I escaped." He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it in any more detail than that, and Changbin doesn’t ask. He can see tears forming in Felix’s eyes, making them shine in the fading light, and he reaches out to take his hand.

"Is there any way I can help?" he asks, and Felix shakes his head.

"I don’t know who took it," he says helplessly. "I don’t know where I was taken, or where he put my coat when he took it from me." He looks up at Changbin, eyes pleading. "Just… let me stay? I feel safe with you."

Changbin feels his chest begin to ache as Felix’s tears spill over, settling on the silver fabric of his shawl. "Of course you can stay," he tells him. "I’ll keep you safe for as long as you need me to."

"Thank you," Felix whispers, holding Changbin’s hand tight. "Thank you."

And Changbin just doesn’t know what to say.

* * *

Felix falls into a deep sleep after he finishes crying. Changbin carries him carefully to bed, covering him with a blanket as best he can since he can't fold back the duvet while he's holding him. He doesn’t look cold, but Changbin still hovers for a few minutes just in case Felix is going to shiver. He doesn’t.

Back in the kitchen, Changbin takes a moment to think. Felix is, by all logic, not human.

He finds that a little difficult to process.

There are some things about it that make perfect sense; his strangeness, calling the ocean his home. But Felix  _ seems  _ human. When he laughs, when he smiles, when he frowns as he thinks. It’s almost incomprehensible that he could be anything but human.

Outside, he hears seals barking.

They’re crowded on the beach again, as they had been when Felix went to speak to them. Are they selkies, Changbin wonders? Could they walk as men like Felix does?

He’s out the door before he’s even really decided to go.

The seals watch him as he approaches.

"Hey," he says. "Felix came to talk to-"

He doesn’t see it happen. One minute he’s speaking to the seals, their dark eyes fixed and quiet, and the next a hand is pinning him to the sand by his throat.

Changbin struggles to breathe as he looks up at the man holding him; the mottled silver coat tied around his waist.

"Tell me where his coat is," the man says. Changbin doesn’t answer, and he presses harder on his neck, his head pushing down into the wet sand. "I’ll kill you if you don’t."

"I don’t- I don’t know," Changbin gasps. "I didn’t take it- someone else-"

The pressure on his neck lessens, and he coughs, gulping in air. "Someone else took the coat," he croaks. "I found Felix on the beach. I didn’t even find out about the coat, or him being a selkie until-"

He breaks off, coughing harder, and the stranger has the decency to look a little guilty. He crouches in the sand beside Changbin, and stares at him. " But Felix is with you? We saw him come out of the same house."

Changbin nods. "He’s been staying in my spare bedroom." For some reason, it feels important to clarify to this stranger that he hasn’t engaged with Felix in any way beyond friendship. Changbin doesn’t think he’d be happy with the idea.

"You’re keeping him safe?"

"I’m trying. I don’t know who’s got his coat though, so I can’t get it back." The stranger sighs. "You miss him?"

"Yeah," the stranger says softly. "He’s my brother. I miss him." He glances up, and nods. "I’m Chan."

"Changbin." Silence for a moment, as Changbin does his best to process that this is real, this is happening. "You really would have killed me if I’d been the one to take his coat, wouldn’t you?"

Chan shrugs. "Wouldn’t be the first human I’ve drowned for trying to hurt one of our own."

Changbin believes him.

"If I can find his coat, I will," he promises. "He wants to go home."

Chan gives him a long look, and the seals echo it. Changbin feels a little surrounded. "He’ll die if he stays, Changbin. He’ll wither away if he can’t come back to the sea. Find his coat. Please."

Changbin nods, unsure of what to say. The gravity of Chan’s words, the connotations of them… it’s a little hard to process.

He watches in silence as Chan pulls his coat up around his shoulders, the fur blending into his skin and the whites of his eyes disappearing until Changbin is just surrounded by seals again.

He waits while they swim away, sleek heads disappearing into the tide.

Felix will die if Changbin doesn’t find his coat. He looks at the moon, hoping she’ll provide some answer.

She doesn’t.

Sighing despite the ache in his throat, Changbin heads back home. Felix sleeps on, but Changbin just lies awake, listening to the waves.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our villain is introduced... and Nettle makes a LOTR reference because I really can't help myself <3

Now that Changbin knows what Felix is, a good deal of the things he had considered strange about him seem to make sense. His diet, for one; Felix seems perfectly healthy subsisting on nothing but fish, although Changbin does encourage him to eat chicken or pork occasionally simply for some variety.

Other things he’s finally made sense of include Felix’s inability to read; he seems fascinated by the way Changbin can decipher the words on the pages of a book, and slowly, Changbin gets to teaching him.

"There," he says gently when Felix manages a full sentence. "You’re good at this." Felix smiles across at him, gentle in the firelight, and Changbin is shaken by the unexpected urge to kiss him. He isn’t entirely sure where it comes from; it’s a soft feeling, warm and sweet as honey, but it still isn’t something he’d ever thought he’d consider with regards to Felix. Perhaps it’s that Changbin understands him better, now. Knowledge of a person breeds affection, he supposes, and it isn’t as though he’s unaware of just how attractive Felix is.

He ignores the feeling. It would hardly be appropriate, given what he knows of Felix’s situation.

But somehow, it doesn’t go away. If anything, it grows with the time they spend together; late nights in front of the fire, and the way Felix waves Changbin goodbye and welcomes him home when he goes out fishing, seems to breed a warmth between the two of them. It’s subtle and homely, and Changbin lies awake more than once imagining just how Felix’s lips would feel against his own in the mornings, or what it would be like to hold him close.

He does nothing about it.

Felix doesn’t belong here, after all.

* * *

One morning, Felix is already in the kitchen when Changbin comes down for breakfast.

"You’re up early," he comments. "These are fisherman’s hours."

"I wanted to see the sun above the ocean," Felix replies. There’s something wistful in his tone, and it makes Changbin’s chest ache.

"Come out with me," he offers. He isn’t sure why he hasn’t thought to suggest it before. "It’ll be a long morning, but you can go below deck and sleep if you get tired."

"Can I?" Felix asks, and Changbin thinks it’s the brightest he’s heard him. How much is he missing the sea? It’s his home, Changbin supposes. It’s odd to think of how completely he believes that now, when he had doubted so fiercely the existence of such creatures; seeing a man step out of the skin of a seal can do that, he reasons.

"Yeah," he says as reassuringly as he can. "It gets kind of lonely out there sometimes. I’d be glad of the company."

"Then I’d love to," Felix agrees, and his smile is so brilliant and so lovely that Changbin can barely look.

The sunrise, once they’re out on the boat, is enough to take Felix’s voice from him utterly. Changbin lets him watch it in peace, casting his nets as always, enjoying the peace of the gull-song and the wind in his hair. It’s nice, in a gentle way, to have a silent companion. Even when he hauls up the first load of fish, sending them cascading over the deck in a rush of silver, Felix is unperturbed. Changbin supposes he’s used to it. Scales and salt and blood are settled into his bones.

"Thank you," Felix says as he watches Changbin prepare to cast the net again. "I needed this. To be out here again."

"I’m sorry I can’t help more," Changbin replies. It must be a new kind of hell for Felix, to be surrounded by the ocean, the boat a cage he can’t escape for fear of drowning.

Felix stands beside him leaning down a little to rest his head on Changbin’s shoulder. "This is enough," he says quietly, and Changbin doesn’t know what to say in return.

"You can eat as much fish as you want," he jokes. "I guess you prefer it raw."

Felix laughs, bright and bold against the brittle air of the dawn. "If I’m being honest, I do."

Changbin snorts. "Knock yourself out. I won’t watch."

"What, are you squeamish about blood?"

"No, I just-" _I’ve just thought about kissing you and I haven’t factored blood on your teeth into that daydream._ "It’s just going to be like watching Gollum or something."

"Gollum?" Felix asks.

"He’s from a film. He’s kind of creepy. He eats raw fish too."

Felix laughs. "I hope I’m not creepy."

"Nah," Changbin tells him. "You couldn’t be scary if you tried." The selkie pouts a little at that, and Changbin can’t help but smile. "Go on," he says. "Eat."

He looks away as Felix enjoys his lunch, only turning when Felix coughs tentatively.

"Do you have a napkin?" he asks, hand held delicately over his mouth. Changbin reaches into his backpack and pulls out a packet of tissues, tossing them across the boat to him. As he turns back, he catches sight of the crimson staining Felix’s lips, a thin sheen of it shining on his teeth. Briefly, he catches himself wondering if he would taste it on Felix’s tongue, the bitter iron of it lingering there. He does his best not to let his mind run with that thought.

Felix spends most of the morning up on deck with him, watching the waves. He leans on the railing, breathing in the salt-spray and singing to the gulls in rough, shouted notes that Changbin thinks are worth more than any symphony.

A pod of seals swims past at one point, playing in the waves and staring up at the boat with wide, dark eyes, and Changbin listens as Felix calls to them. It’s a mournful sound behind the laughter of it, echoing out across the water in a cacophony of greetings and goodbyes.

 _hello_ , Changbin thinks they’re saying. swim with us again. _come back down with us_.

They quieten as the boat moves away, and Changbin watches Felix as he stares wistfully after them.

 _That’s his home_ , Changbin tells himself. _With them_. _Not up here, with you. Not by your fireside, or in the bed in your attic_.

But it doesn’t stop him looking. Watching those dark eyes shine, and the morning light highlight the silver-grey of his freckles. He’s beautiful, Changbin thinks. He’s never thought it so clearly before. Felix is _beautiful_.

_And he’s not yours._

Changbin turns away, and casts his net again.

* * *

Changbin heads out to the market again that afternoon, meaning to pick up a few extras now that he’s been paid for that morning’s catch. Felix declines his invitation to come along.

"It’s too loud," he says. "And I’m tired."

Changbin does his best not to think of Chan’s words. _He’ll wither away if he can’t come back to the sea._ Is it happening already? Is Felix beginning to fade, losing his will to keep going?

He hopes not.

"I’ll see you later, then," he says, and Felix nods, crossing the room to pull Changbin in for a hug. Changbin holds him close for a moment, breathing in the salt-and-sand scent of him. He wonders if Felix will always smell like that, no matter how long he spends away from the waves.

The market is crowded, and Changbin finds himself bumping into plenty of people; he comes to expect it, and is a little surprised when someone lays a hand on his shoulder instead of simply pushing past.

"Seo," they say, and Changbin looks up to see a face he recognises.

"Lowe," he says, nodding to the other fisherman. "It’s been a while."

"It has. Got a minute?"

"Sure."

Changbin has never particularly liked Ian Lowe; he’s always seemed a little rougher than the other fishermen, and at first, Changbin thought nothing of it. People aren’t often soft in such a trade. But one too many jokes about Changbin’s ethnicity, and eventually his sexuality, and Changbin had decided to avoid engaging with him at all costs.

But when a request is so direct, he’s not sure how to refuse.

"What did you need?" he asks, and Lowe pulls him to the side, out of the crowd.

"Have you seen a kid around the village lately?" He frowns, looking at Changbin critically. "Maybe not a kid. Maybe around your age. A little taller, but thin. Dark eyes. Looks like you."

"Like me?" Changbin asks.

"You know. Not from around here."

Changbin doesn’t bother to tell him that his parents moved to England, just across the border, long before Changbin was born. Lowe knows that, he thinks, and he’s mostly focused on Lowe’s description.

 _Felix_ , he realises. _That sounds like Felix._

"Not seen him," he lies. "Why are you looking? He a friend of yours?"

"Something like that."

 _Liar_ , Changbin thinks. _You liar. You pulled him from the sea and took his coat and-_

He thinks of what Felix told him. _He tried to force me_ , he’d said. Looking at Lowe with that in mind, Changbin feels some violent mixture of the urge to vomit and the desire to hold Lowe’s head underwater until he coughs up blood.

"I’ll keep him in mind," he says as steadily as he can. "Let you know if I see anything."

"Good. He shouldn’t be out there alone."

Lowe leaves without another word, and Changbin has to sit down for a moment. Of course it would be someone like Lowe. Someone callous and cruel and unkind. Only someone like that would take someone like Felix from his home and refuse to let him go.

The market, he finds, is suddenly too much, and the urge to return home to Felix too strong for him to ignore. Crumpling up his list in his pocket, he heads back to his car, and breaks at least three speed limits on his way home.

Felix is curled by the fire, asleep, and Changbin’s heart eases in his chest at the sight of him wrapped in his silver shawl. He looks so impossibly gentle like this, chest rising and falling gently, firelight casting a glow over his skin, and Changbin feels the desire he’s fast becoming familiar with to brush his hair from his face, hold him close, press soft kisses to his skin.

As always, he ignores it. Felix isn’t his to want, after all.

But something in him still feels agitated at the thought of leaving Felix alone now that he knows that Lowe is looking for him.

So he sits beside the fire, and waits for Felix to wake.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning that this chapter has a slightly more in-depth discussion of the past attempted non-con! Don't want anyone to be surprised by it.
> 
> Next update Friday <3

Changbin is stoking the fire when Felix stirs. He murmurs something, stretching as he opens his eyes, and smiles softly as he realises who’s sitting beside him.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," Changbin repeats quietly.

"How was the market?"

Changbin hesitates. "It was… something happened."

Felix frowns, appearing to wake up a little more at the idea that Changbin is upset. "Are you ok?" he asks.

For a moment, Changbin doesn’t reply. He isn’t sure how to. "I think," he says eventually, "that I know who has your coat." And Felix just stares at him, eyes wide and shining in the firelight. "He doesn’t know that you’re here," Changbin assures him. "He just- he came to ask me if I’d seen you. Well, he gave me a description and I… I think it’s you that he’s looking for."

Still, Felix says nothing.

"I can… I can try to get it back for you," Changbin says hesitantly, unsure of how to take Felix’s lack of response. "I can-"

"No," Felix says quietly.

"No?"

"You can’t go there. You can’t- he’ll-"

"Felix, I can  _ help _ -"

"I don’t want you to," Felix says sharply. He’s curled in on himself, shawl pulled close around him, and he’s gripping the fabric so tightly that Changbin thinks he might tear it. 

He seems overwhelmed, working himself up into a kind of panic Changbin doesn’t understand. "Ok," he says gently. "Ok, I won’t go." Carefully, he pulls Felix into his arms, and the selkie half-collapses against him, breath hitching slightly as he leans into Changbin’s embrace.

"I don’t want you to get hurt," Felix whispers.

"It’s ok," Changbin murmurs. "I’m not going anywhere."

* * *

At Felix’s request, they spend the evening curled on Changbin’s bed.

"I just don’t want to be by myself," he’d said, and Changbin had agreed, understanding that, beneath his words, Felix wanted to make sure that Changbin wasn’t going anywhere. 

Together, they listen to the sound of the sea outside the window. Felix breathes in time with it, a rhythm with no melody attached. It’s soothing, but Changbin can’t fall asleep.   


"The man who took your coat," he says eventually, and Felix tenses. "I’m not- I won’t go. That’s not what I want to talk about." He feels the selkie relax against him, and considers his next words carefully. "You said… you said he tried to force you."

This has been weighing heavily on his mind ever since Felix first said it, and he knows he can’t leave it on one side forever, waiting for the right moment. There’ll never be a right moment for this. And now he knows exactly who the culprit is, it feels like something he can no longer ignore.

"Did he… god, I don’t know how to ask this." Changbin stops, feeling Felix’s eyes on him. "Did he rape you?" he manages to say, and the words alone are enough to make him feel sick.

For a moment, Felix doesn’t reply, and as the silence stretches, Changbin becomes more and more convinced that the answer is yes. He can’t quite bear it.

"He tried," Felix replies eventually, and Changbin almost can’t breathe under the weight of relief and horror that settles in his chest. There’s fury there, too, he thinks, at the sheer  _ hypocrisy  _ of Ian Lowe; that he would call Changbin  _ faggot  _ or  _ fairy  _ for years, and then try to force himself on a beautiful, shining boy he pulled from the water.

"He kept- he was holding me down," Felix continues, voice faltering. "He said that I was his. He’d caught me, and taken my coat, so I had to stay with him. Like the stories. I didn’t know what he meant."

Changbin does. "It’s how it often works in the old tales," he tells Felix softly. "A fisherman falls in love with a selkie and takes her coat so she’ll marry him and stay. It’s cruel."

"Is that how humans love?" Felix asks, barely audible. Changbin feels a rush of something cold at the question.

"No," he promises, voice shaking. "That’s not how humans love. He didn’t love you, Felix, he was just… obsessed, maybe. Delusional."

"Good," Felix whispers. Changbin doesn’t ask what he means.

"You got away from him, though?"

"I don’t know how. I had to leave my coat behind, but I tried to swim," Felix explains.

"And washed up on the beach," Changbin murmurs.

"It was cold," Felix whispers. "The water doesn’t feel cold to me with my coat. But it was so cold, and I was so scared."

Changbin tries to keep his breathing even. He doesn’t have a word for the sensation in his chest, something more than anger, more than pain and fear and hate, turning every thrum of his heart to the beat of war drums. Lowe had kidnapped Felix, stolen his way home and his identity, tried to-

He can’t think about it. He can’t. Can’t think of Felix pinned down, desperate and afraid and not understanding why.

"You’re safe here," he manages to say. "I promise you, no one will hurt you here."

"I know," Felix replies. "I know you’ll keep me safe."

Slowly, Changbin turns so that he’s lying on his side, nose close to Felix’s cheek. "Can I- I want to hold you," he says, words clumsy on his tongue. He doesn’t know how to ask. Doesn’t know how to explain that he feels an ache in his bones to pull Felix close enough that nothing else can reach him. Protect him.

Felix nods, shifting closer so that Changbin can wrap his arms around him. He sighs gently against Changbin’s collarbone, and Changbin buries his face in his hair. The moment is almost perfect; the setting sun casting a last glow over the room, the sea washing over the shingles outside. Felix, in his arms.

But there’s a sadness to it Changbin can’t shake. Felix’s memory of fear and ice cold water waits behind it, his grief over the loss of his coat, his home. All of it. A wave, waiting to crash down again.

_ Not now _ , Changbin thinks.  _ Let us have this. Let me hold him _ .  _ Let me keep him safe. _

He isn’t sure who he’s praying to.

* * *

Things seem a little strange between the two of them the next morning. Changbin hopes he hasn’t crossed a line, that holding Felix close against his chest wasn’t too much.

_ Lowe pinned him down and wouldn’t let him go, and you think he’d find safety in being held? _ He pushes away the thought. Felix had agreed, had moved closer so that he could press his nose against the point where Changbin’s pulse beat strongest.

But Felix is thoughtful and quiet, not laughing when Changbin cracks jokes, staring when he thinks Changbin isn’t looking. It’s making him nervous.

He suggests that perhaps they go somewhere. A walk on the cliffs. Felix agrees, quietly, and they wander up the hills, the bright yellow of gorse sparkling like electricity among the grass.

"You ok?" he asks, as casually as he can. "You seem kind of... unsettled."

"Yeah," Felix says lightly. "Yeah, everything’s fine."

"Missing home?" Changbin asks.

Felix shrugs, and there’s silence between them, broken only by the rustle of the grass and the calls of the seabirds.

The wind is stronger at the tops of the cliffs, whipping Felix’s dark hair across his eyes and making him laugh. It warms Changbin’s chest, and he tries to push it down.  _ He’s not yours. Not yours to love, or to hold, or to kiss _ .

He needs to stop thinking about kissing Felix.

"Are you sure you’re ok?" he asks. "Really?"

Felix sighs. There’s too much weight behind it, and Changbin’s chest aches.

"I just- I’ve been thinking about some stuff," Felix mumbles. "Some… I don’t know. Something you said last night."

Changbin tries to think back through everything he said when they were curled in his bed. He can only remember scraps, bits and pieces of conversations and emotions.

"What, specifically?" he asks, trying not to let his voice shake. Did he say something wrong? Cross a line?

"You told me," Felix says slowly. "That not all-" he breaks off, sitting down in the grass with a suddenness that alarms Changbin a little. Changbin sits down beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and waits for him to keep speaking. "You told me that not all humans love like him," Felix finishes in a small voice.

"They don’t," Changbin tells him.

"I’ve just been thinking, I guess, about… love," Felix says, looking down at the grass between his knees.

"I’m afraid I can’t tell you many stories, if that’s what you want," Changbin says as lightly as he can. "I’ve only been in love once."

"Do you still love that person?" Felix asks after a moment. Changbin sighs along with the wind, watching the flowers dance.

"No," he says. "It faded."

"I’m sorry."

"No need to be," Changbin says softly. "Things change. New love arrives."

"New love," Felix murmurs.

A second passes, and hovers, wind catching the wildflowers and the waves.

Changbin feels the gentle press of Felix’s lips against his cheek, close to the corner of his mouth.

He turns before Felix has pulled away fully, the tips of their noses almost brushing, Felix flushed and looking away.

"New love," Changbin repeats, and he moves just a little closer, just enough to say  _ yes, this is what I want, this is what I’ve been wanting for a while, but I need you to tell me again that you want it too. _

And Felix kisses him on the lips, soft and sweet and bitten cold from the wind; and Changbin decides, up on the cliffs with a selkie laughing in between pressing gentle kisses to his mouth, that he never wants to love anyone else in all the days he lives.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter! Warning for graphic descriptions of violence, and sexual content that's kind of stronger than implied but not quite explicit? It's very brief.
> 
> I hope this chapter appeases the bloodlust you've all been building up in the comments.
> 
> Final update Sunday <3

Changbin feels something shift after that day. Felix seems… closer. Happier. There’s a warmth in the air between the two of them, and Changbin doesn’t quite realise what it is until Felix bothers him while he cooks, distracting him from the stove with slow, sweet kisses.

It feels like home.

_ Felix _ feels like home.

He lets himself be distracted, tries to kiss every silver freckle on Felix’s cheeks while he laughs, bright and clear as a bell.  It’s rare to hear him laugh like that these days. He seems tired, and quiet, more often wanting to just lie in bed with Changbin and listen to the ocean.

He can’t stay. Changbin knows he can’t stay. Knows it’s selfish to want to keep him close forever, live out their days in this little cottage on the shore.

He wants it anyway, but some things aren’t his to keep.

"I spoke to Chan," he tells Felix gently over dinner. Felix glances up in surprise.

"When?"

"A few weeks ago."

"What did he say?" Felix asks. He seems nervous, and Changbin wonders briefly if Felix doesn’t want him to know that staying on land is a death sentence for him.

"That you have to go home," Changbin replies. "That you’ll die if we can’t get your coat back."

Silence descends over them for a moment.

"Why didn’t you tell me, Felix?" Changbin asks softly. "You’ve been here a while."

Felix pushes his food around his plate, and Changbin waits.

"Is it because you think I’ll get hurt if I try to get your coat back?"

"Yes," Felix whispers, and Changbin feels that same swell of rage again, deep in his sternum, that Lowe made Felix so very afraid.

"I can take care of myself, Felix," he promises. "And you need this. I can’t watch you die. I just can’t. I’d rather risk getting hurt than see that happen."

Felix meets his eyes then, looking as though he might cry, and Changbin wants more than anything to hold him. To pull him close and tell him he loves him and that he’s safe. That everything will be ok. Because he does love Felix, he realises. With all the heart he has.

He reaches for Felix’s hand. "You won’t have to face him, Lix. I’ll find a way for you to get home."

Felix starts crying in earnest, then; desperate, gasping sobs that shake his entire frame. Changbin circles the table to wrap his arms around him, Felix’s tears soaking his shirt as he cries.

"I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner," he says, stroking the selkie’s hair. "You could have been home so much sooner."

"I didn’t want you to go," Felix says, voice thick with tears, and Changbin leans down to press a kiss to his hair. "I still don’t. I don’t want him to hurt you."

Changbin doesn’t know what to say.

_ I wish you could stay. _ _   
_ _ I want to know you better. _ _   
_ _ I want to know you better than anyone does. _

"It’s going to be ok," he murmurs against Felix’s hair. "I promise you’ll be ok."

And Felix just keeps on crying.

* * *

Changbin gets ready to leave later that night. Dark has long since fallen, and he thinks he’ll go unnoticed when he passes up through the village to Ian Lowe’s isolated house on the hill. Changbin’s never been so grateful that Lowe lives so far away; if he had neighbours of any kind, this would probably be much more difficult.

Lacing up his boots, he considers his plan. If he’s honest, he doesn’t have one. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Lowe, or how he’s going to gain access to his house for long enough to find Felix’s coat.

He just knows that it has to work. Whatever he does, it has to  _ work _ .

Or Felix will die.

He’s almost out the door when Felix clatters down the stairs; he’s wrapped up in Changbin’s old coat over his jumper, and his boots are messily laced, tied in all the wrong places.

"I’m coming with you," he says. His voice is shaking, and Changbin thinks he might still be crying a little.

"Felix-" Changbin begins, and Felix shakes his head vigorously.

"I can’t let you go there alone. He might hurt you, Changbin, I can’t let him hurt you-"

"Hey, I’ll be fine," Changbin tells him, crossing the room to hold him carefully. Felix leans into him, burying his face in the collar of his coat, and Changbin kisses his cheek softly. "You don’t have to go, Felix. I can do this alone."

"I won’t let you."

"Felix…"

"I’m coming with you. I have to."

Changbin can tell from the strength in his words that Felix won’t be shaken. "Ok," he says. "But you stay out of sight, understand? He can’t even know that you’re there."

Felix nods, and his eyes are so full of steel and fear and hope that Changbin can’t help kissing him quickly.  _ I love you _ , he considers saying.

"Come on," he says instead. "Let’s lace these boots up properly first, huh?"

Felix laughs weakly. "I did my best."

"I know."

* * *

There’s a light on in Lowe’s house when they arrive; just one, accompanied by the faint sound of the television. Felix exhales slowly, and Changbin squeezes his hand, slick with the rain that falls in a steady mist over the island.

"You don’t have to do this," he whispers, giving Felix one more chance to back out. "I can try by myself."

Felix shakes his head. Changbin can see the set of his jaw even in the dark, strong and determined. "I have to. He took my coat, Changbin, I have to get it  _ back _ ."

Changbin nods, squeezing his hand again.  _ I love you _ , he wants to say again. He doesn’t.

"Ok. I’ll distract him, and you sneak round the back. The back door should be unlocked. No one locks their doors around here."

"Got it. Let’s go." Felix rises to his feet, ready to run around the back of the house, and Changbin catches his wrist. Felix’s eyes widen until Changbin kisses him, and his expression has softened when he pulls away.

"Stay safe, ok? If he sees you, you  _ run _ , Felix. No matter what."

"No matter what," Felix agrees. Changbin doesn’t think he’ll take much convincing to leave if Lowe sets eyes on him.

Changbin watches Felix dart behind the house, waiting until he’s out of sight to approach the door. He knocks harder than necessary, and waits for footsteps.

"What the hell are you doing here, Seo?" Lowe asks when he opens the door.

"Came to talk," Changbin replies.

"Talk? We ain’t got nothing to talk about." The door starts to close, and Changbin forces it back open, watching Lowe’s expression darken as he does so.

"I think we should talk about a selkie," Changbin says, voice as steady as he can make it, and Lowe freezes.

"Is he with you? Have you been keeping him?" he asks, and Changbin feels sick at the way he phrases it.

"I’ve been keeping him  _ safe _ ," he replies. "From you."

"Show me where he is," Lowe orders, voice so low it’s almost a growl, and Changbin takes a step back mostly on instinct. "Is he at your house? Is that where he’s been all along?"   


"It’s none of your business where he’s been," Changbin tells him, and Lowe grabs him by his shirt before he can move away.

"He’s  _ mine _ , Seo. I caught him. I took his coat. He belongs to  _ me _ , not you, so you’re going to show me-"

A sound, from somewhere within the house. Changbin’s blood runs cold. Slowly, Lowe lets him go, and Changbin follows him as he storms into the house, striding from room to room in search of the noise.

"You’re  _ here _ ," he says, and Changbin wraps an arm around his neck from behind, pulling him back and away from Felix; he’s standing frozen in the middle of the room, soot-soaked coat in his hands. It shines despite the dirt, but Changbin doesn’t have time to appreciate the beauty of it.

"Felix," he shouts, pulling hard against Lowe as he struggles. "Felix,  _ go!" _

Felix barely has time to take a step before Lowe breaks free, throwing Changbin to the floor and tugging him close by the wrist. The coat falls to the floor, trampled beneath their boots.

"You should have stayed with  _ me _ ," Lowe growls, holding Felix hard enough to bruise. "You belong to me, selkie."

Changbin staggers to his feet, ignoring the way his head aches from where it hit the wall. He can tell from the briefest glance that Felix is utterly lost, paralysed by fear, eyes wide and shining like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a hawk.

"He doesn’t  _ belong _ to anyone," Changbin manages to say, and as Lowe turns to look at him, Changbin punches him as hard as he can across the face. His head snaps to the side, fingers loosening around Felix’s wrist; but the just selkie stands, still as a statue, eyes wide and dark with fear.

Changbin hits Lowe again before he can take hold of Felix again, aiming for his stomach this time, and Felix just keeps on staring.

"Felix," Changbin shouts out, doing his best to push Lowe back against the wall. "Felix, get out of here! Go!"

Nothing. Just wide, scared eyes, fixed on the two of them.

Lowe tries to fight back then, grasping hands aiming for Changbin’s throat, and Changbin tackles him to the floor. They land half on Felix’s coat, pinning it down, and Changbin can’t find it in him to care. The coat isn’t what matters right now; Felix is. Still just standing there. So afraid.

Afraid of Lowe. The man who stole him away from his home. Took everything from him.

Tried to hurt him.  _ Own _ him.

Changbin raises his fist and hits Lowe again.

And again.

And again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Felix turn and run.

He isn’t sure how long it takes for Lowe to stop moving.

Changbin gets to his feet and staggers back, panting. Lowe’s face is a bloodied mess, nose clearly broken and lips split and crushed against his teeth.  Distantly, Changbin realises he’s shaking. He’s never done that before. Never wanted to hurt someone quite that badly.

He pushes away the thought as best he can, pulling Felix’s coat out from under Lowe and bundling it into his arms. He stands there for a moment, lost.

He needs to get home, he remembers. He needs to get to Felix.

Changbin steps out into the rain, feeling oddly empty, and closes Lowe’s front door behind him.

* * *

"Oh, thank god you’re here," is the first thing Changbin says to Felix when they meet back home. Changbin is soaked and shivering, the coat in his hands dripping onto his kitchen floor. "I thought- I didn’t know if you’d just run away somewhere, you looked terrified, you-"

"I knew I would be safe here," Felix tells him softly, deep voice soothing as honey on Changbin’s soul.

"You should go," Changbin tells him. "Go, now, in case he comes after you." He holds out the seal-skin coat, the silver of it cool against his palm, and Felix hesitates, hand hovering above it. "Felix, you need to  _ go." _

"I don’t think he will," Felix says softly.

"What?"

"I don’t think he’ll come after me," he says again as he takes the coat and drapes it over the kitchen chair, and there’s something in his tone that Changbin can’t quite place. "You hurt him, I don’t think he’ll follow you now, I-" he stops. Changbin waits, adrenaline still thrumming in his veins. "I could stay a little longer," he says quietly. "Before I have to go, I could- I want to stay with you just a little longer."

"Felix-"

But Felix’s lips meet his, and Changbin thinks he understands. It's different to the way they've kissed before; less laughter, less summer-sweetness; something like desperation in the way Felix presses his body against him, hands fluttering against his jaw.

This is a goodbye.

He does his best to commit moments to memory after that, knowing he’ll never have them again. That’s why Felix is doing this, he thinks as they make their way up the stairs and towards his bed. Because this is the last time they have before they disappear from each other’s lives, parted by the ocean and the sand.

Changbin doesn’t want to think about that.

Instead, he focuses on the way he shivers when cold hands meet his skin.

The taste of salt and iron from the selkie's tongue.

Felix, astride his hips, breath rough and ragged as the ocean over the shingles as he moves.

He lies awake for as long as he can afterwards, watching the moonlight stain Felix’s skin. He loves him. It’s not like he hasn’t known for a while. But Changbin  _ loves  _ Felix. Loves his smile and the stars that dust his skin and the way he walks like water flowing between rooms. Gently, he presses a final kiss to the freckles on his shoulder.

When he wakes, his bed is empty and the coat is gone. Only his silver shawl remains, draped over the arm of the sofa.

Felix is nowhere to be found.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter! Thank you so much to everyone who's read this far, especially those of you who left comments and kudos! It really means a lot.
> 
> I'll hopefully see some of you again at the start of another story.
> 
> Much love, Nettle <3

Lowe confronts Changbin two days later, while he’s sitting on the pier with Jim. He has the police in tow, and Jim slides Changbin a look.

"It’s him," Lowe spits. "He broke into my house and attacked me."

"Is this true, sir?" one of the police officers asks Changbin.

"No," Changbin lies. "Why would I do something like that?"

"Then can you tell us your whereabouts two nights ago?" the officer asks. "On the 21st, at 10:40pm."

"Seo was with me that evening," Jim butts in. "Helping me set up the-" he clicks his fingers. "-the Skype. You know the youth are better with these things, and I wanted to talk to my grandson out on the mainland."

"Is this true, sir?"

Changbin nods. "Yeah. Took a good while since he’s running such an old operating system. Spent most of the time running updates, didn’t leave until gone eleven."

Lowe’s face contorts, bruises twisting in a way that seems painful. "You  _ liar _ . You’re lying, you bastard, you  _ thief _ -"

"Thief?" the police officer asks. "You didn’t tell us anything was stolen from you, Mr Lowe."

"What’s he supposed to have taken?" Jim asks with excellent mock curiosity. The man could have been an actor, Changbin thinks.

Lowe has nothing to say to that. Changbin remembers the beautiful silver coat, softer than anything he’s ever touched, stuffed into the chimney, stained and matted with soot, and relives the satisfaction of his fist meeting Lowe’s nose.

"Mr Lowe?" the officer asks. No reply. "Ok, Mr Lowe. I think we’re done here."

Neither Jim nor Changbin speak again until they’re gone.

"Sounds like you did a good thing," Jim says eventually. "Where’s the selkie now?"

Changbin shrugs. "I don’t know. Out in the water, I suppose. He took his coat and left." Not that it had happened so simply.

"You’ll have made a friend there," Jim remarks. "The whole pod will most likely protect your boat now. You might need it if Lowe decides to get revenge without the police behind him."

"I can hold my own," Changbin says casually.

Jim laughs. "Fair enough. Glad someone finally broke his nose. Plenty of us been wanting to."

"He deserved it," Changbin says a little savagely. "You should have- the things the selkie said about him, Jim. The things he said he’d done."

Jim is silent for a moment before he places a gnarled hand on Changbin’s shoulder. There are scars on his fingertips as there are on Changbin’s, fish hooks and sharp teeth and rough nets digging into the soft skin over the years of work. "You stopped it, Seo. There was hurt, and you ended it. That’s all you could have done."

"Yeah," Changbin agrees softly.

The waves lap at the pier, and the two of them watch the sky until the sun begins to fall, sinking towards the mainland.

* * *

Changbin finds the house too quiet without Felix.

He spends more and more time out on the water, or in the market, or even just wandering the beach. He sees Jim watching him once or twice, and gives him a wave. He can tell that Changbin is grieving, he thinks.

Lowe is watching too, once, and Changbin pretends he doesn’t see him.

After four days, a pod of seals begins to follow his boat.

"Hi," he calls. "Nice day for it."

They do not bark in reply, simply follow silently, dark eyes fixed on him.

"Are you guys Felix’s pod?" he asks, leaning on the railing. "If you are, maybe you could deliver a message for me."

Still no reply.

Changbin sighs. "Ok. On the off chance you are, tell him…"

Tell him what? Changbin has so much to say.

_ I miss you. _ _   
_ _ I hope you’re happy. _ _   
_ _ I love you. _ _   
_ _ I should have told you I love you before I took you to bed. _ _   
_ _ I should have told you so many times. _

"You know what?" he says heavily. "I’ll leave well alone. Don’t even tell him you saw me, ok?" He pushes off the railing, pretending to focus on some trifling control of the boat, and when he looks away the seals have vanished as if they were never there.

* * *

Lowe comes for him the next night.

Changbin is sitting in bed when he hears a window break downstairs; it’s late, far too late to be awake, but he’s been struggling to sleep ever since Felix left, plagued by dreams of deep water and cold skin and salt-touched kisses that he’d rather avoid.

He supposes that’s a good thing, now.

Getting to his feet and looking around for anything he could use as a weapon, Changbin despairs of the fact that anything heavy or sharp is hidden away downstairs. There are footsteps now, almost right outside his door, and there’s nothing he can use to fight, nowhere he can hide-

The door swings open, slamming against the wall hard enough that a book falls from his shelf, and Changbin barely has the time to register that Ian Lowe is carrying a set of heavy metal bolt cutters before they strike him on the shoulder and send him tumbling to the floor.

The blow is quickly followed by another, to his knee this time, and Changbin yells out in pain. He’s never known pain like that, thinks his kneecap might have shattered, but he doesn’t have time to focus on it before Lowe is kneeling beside him, the bolt cutters pressed across his stomach.

"Where is it? The selk."

"Gone," Changbin chokes out. "He’s gone."

Lowe’s face contorts into something Changbin thinks might be… confusion. There’s rage there, too, ugly and dark as a moonless night, but at the heart of it, he seems just to not understand.

"You let it go?" he asks. "You had its coat, you had it trapped, and you… _ let it go _ ?"

Changbin takes a minute to try to breathe through the pain in his shoulder and his knee, the weight of the metal pressed across his ribs. " He wasn’t mine," he manages to say. "Him, and his coat… neither of them belonged to me."

Lowe looks at him for a long moment. Slowly, he lifts the bolt cutters, Changbin gasping in relief at the loss of pressure, and raises them high above his head.

Changbin closes his eyes.

And then he hears the sirens.

They’re close, close enough that when he opens his eyes he can see the blue and red shining through his window, bright and bold and cutting clean through the night, casting the room into odd, psychedelic shadow.

Lowe runs.

Changbin just lies on his bedroom floor, unable to get up, until he hears Jim calling his name.

"Seo? Seo, are you in here?"

"Up here," he calls weakly, and Jim’s eyes go wide when he opens the door and finds Changbin lying there.

"I’ll get paramedics," he promises. "The police are here, they’ve got him, but-"

Changbin loses consciousness before he finishes his sentence.

* * *

Recovery is a slow process. Changbin’s shoulder heals faster than his knee, but he’s told that he’ll need to stretch both of them regularly and carefully if he wants to keep fishing. He dutifully follows his exercises, using his crutch as often as he can to keep weight off his knee.  He can’t walk on the beach anymore. The sand is too soft, offering nothing solid for his crutch to brace on, and he finds that he struggles even more with the pebbles that come right up to his back door, leaving that side of the house inaccessible to him.

Perhaps that’s why it takes him a while to notice the seals.

There are seven of them, as far as he can tell; six that wait in the water, dark eyes shining, and one that tends to push its way up the sand, sitting on the edge of the pebbles. He can only see them from the window, unable to go out to them, but he thinks he might know what they are.

After three days, watching the seals sit silent and still as night falls, Changbin decides to brave it. He knows he won’t be able to get far down the beach, but he just needs to know for sure.

The shingles are, thankfully, dry; it hasn’t rained in a few days, and the stones skitter over each other lightly as they shift beneath Changbin’s feet. He leans on the fence for as long as he can, knowing his crutch won’t be much use once he lets go, but eventually he’s gone as far as he can with its support.

He almost falls several times as he makes his way down towards the sand, doing his best to plant his crutch firmly between larger stones to ensure he can actually take a step forward. Mostly, he keeps his eyes on his feet, which is why he’s more than a little surprised when gentle hands take hold of his forearms, offering him support.

Changbin looks up, and almost cries.

Because it’s Felix.

It’s  _ Felix _ , soft silver coat tied about his waist, torso bared to the cold night air. He’s smiling hesitantly, hopefully, and if Changbin thought he could stand without it, he’d throw his crutch aside just to pull the selkie into his arms.

"Felix," he says instead, close to tears. "You came back."

"I came back," Felix confirms, and  _ god _ , Changbin has missed his voice.

Slowly, they make their way back up the beach, Felix lighting the fire in the living room when it’s clear that Changbin can’t kneel to do so.

"What happened to you?" Felix asks, touching his knee gently.

"Lowe. He came looking for you."

"And he hurt you?"

"He did."

Felix keeps his hand on Changbin’s knee, careful and kind, as though he wishes he could heal it. "I thought something must have happened. I haven’t seen you out on the boat or the beach for weeks."

"You’ve been looking out for me?"

Felix nods shyly. "Ever since I decided to come back. Chan and the others didn’t want me to at first, but… I think I made them understand."

Changbin frowns. "You can’t stay here, though. You’ll die."

"I won’t. Not as long as I still have access to my coat. As long as I can come and go as I please." He looks up at Changbin, eyes wide and sincere. "I trust you. I know you won’t try to keep me."

"I won’t," Changbin promises, heart rising in his chest at the prospect of Felix staying with him, staying by his side. "I swear I won’t."

Felix smiles, bright and shining silver, as he pulls himself onto the sofa to sit beside Changbin. "I can stay, then? You… you want me to stay?"

Changbin reaches up to brush his fingertips over Felix’s jaw, the nape of his neck, twisting into the soft hair there. "Of course I want you to stay," he says softly. "I love you."

Felix’s smile falters a little into something more awed, more serious, but Changbin barely has time to study the depths of silver in his eyes before Felix is kissing him. He still tastes the same, salt and iron on Changbin’s tongue.

Changbin doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of it.

* * *

Felix, as promised, comes and goes.

He tends to stay with Changbin for maybe four or five days at a time, disappearing for another three, and then coming back. Once, he disappears for three entire weeks, leaving Changbin frantic, but he comes back, as always, slipping into Changbin’s bed in the middle of the night so that he wakes up with the selkie by his side.

Jim seems to realise exactly who Felix is rather quickly. "You can be sure I’ll hold your fisherman accountable if he does something he shouldn’t," he tells Felix, and he laughs, clinging to Changbin’s arm.

"Thank you," he says earnestly. "But he won’t. And even if he did, I think my brothers would get to him first."

"Oh, definitely," Changbin agrees. He’s already had another, very serious talk with Chan, during which he’d been threatened with death several times if Felix should come to any harm.

"Good," Jim says. "We’ve enough sad stories of selks in this town. It’d be a pity to write another."

"Don’t worry," Felix tells him, leaning up to kiss his whiskery cheek and make him blush. "I think we’re writing a happy one."

And Changbin agrees. Even when Felix leaves, slipping into his skin and the moonlit shallows, he finds that he’s happy. Because he knows that Felix will return; he’ll be cold, when he comes back, and Changbin will light a fire for him and hang his coat to dry before it; and there’ll be salt crystals settled on his skin for Changbin to taste when they make love; and he’ll be happy when he wakes, to find Felix still at his kitchen table, shoulders wrapped in the silver shawl Changbin bought for him.

Like the tides, Felix will come and go. But Changbin knows the tides, has sailed them for years; he understands the depths of them, the simple truth of the moon and the water.

He understands that what is lost will return, if only he waits for long enough.

And Felix always does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come check out my new tumblr @nettlestingsoup to get info on my WIPs, sneak previews of fics on my posting list, and a lot of posts about skz and writing!


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